There are a few things that should be noted here, this is not just a simple stepper controller it's a smart controller which can be easily updated and changed.

Some advantages of the driver :

• more drive modes selectable by jumpers or program (normal, half step,  high torque)
• power saving mode
• ability to add temperature sensors, limit sensors to protect the machine

The driver is built around a pic16f84 microcontroller, basically the circuit is a tension stabilizer, an oscillator for the pic microcontroller, some components to set pin B0 as interrupt and all the ports pins are connected to pins so they can be easily connected.

WARNING: to create this you will need to program the pic microcontroller, and for that you need a programmer, you can see how to build one on this blog, here : pic 16f84 jdm programmer

Here is a picture with the final product :

stepper driver front view

stepper driver back view

2 controllers in an 2 axis driver

For the pcb design i used the eagle software (great software) to create first a schematic then the board and then the print files,

here is the schematic :

Stepper controller schematic

The huge advantage for this is that you have all the port pins connected to pins, and all of them except the pin b0 (which is made to be kept low or high) can be used for anything.

In this case we have pins bo - tact, pin b1 - direction, pins b2- b5 as phases selection.

And now here are the designs for this schematic :

bottom view

top view

And here is the file ready to be printed, this file is at the actual dimensions :

stepper controller print

In the above image the top layer is already mirrored so all you have to do is print it and follow the instructions from this post : How to create PCB’s using toner transfer method

All you have to do now is to program the pic, here is the compiled version : Compiled program

The program is compiled using ccs compiler, if you are interested here is the  source code : source code

And this is is.... have fun.

Related posts:

1. Stepper motor inteligent driver and controller
2. programming the pic16f84
3. Testing my stepper motor driver and software

As you can see I created a paper cube and inserted the led into it to have a diffuse light, or else the 3 basic colors  will appear as 3 red circles, and we don't want that.

Here are some pictures too :

Mood light

the paper cube inside which the led is inserted

the rgb led

And if you are interested in building the paper cube here is the plan (print on an A4 sheet of paper) :

Paper cube

If you are interested here is some theory :

Each color is build using 3 base colors : red, green and blue, the led has 4 pins, a comon one and one for each color, so you can individualy turn on and off each color, so we will use 4 pins from the paralel port.

In my program (which is not yet optimized) each component (rgb) can have a value between 0 and 255, to do this we have a huge while cycle where we show the colors, here is a diagram to make it easier.

Diagram

So from diagram is pretty clear, based on each color value we show that color an amount of time, as bigger the value, more the time and brighter the color, a resolution of 255 values for each color is more then enough for this case.

There are more things in the program, for example you can increase or decrease the value for each color using the keyboard to see how diferent colors look like.

Also from the setR, setG, setB functions you can customize what to do for each color, in case you use diferent pins i used pin0: red, pin1:common, pin2: blue, pin3: green, feel free to use any other combination but remember to change those functions.

Any questions are welcome.

Related posts:

1. Stepper motor inteligent driver and controller
2. Stepper motor controller

The driver is composed from 2 parts, 2 separates modules the power module (ROAR HB power module)  which contains the H bridges and the control module (ROAR MPP brain module) which will send signals to the power module.

The power module is pretty straight forward, will need 4 input pins, 4 output pins, and in pins for logic supply and power supply. As i was going to use the driver maybe in future robots also i decided to put some leds on the board 2 red led for each supply and 1 led for each input pin, so a total of 6 leds, i also added some pins for the cooling fan for the h bridge as the motor can suck a lot of power the bridge gets pretty hot.

Here is the full driver (the power module and the brain module, and a cooling fan)

full driver

Here is my final version of the power module a.k.a ROAR HB power module

ROAR HB power module

The huge advantage of this module is that it can use on a multitude of circuits all inputs and outputs are connected to pins. This can also be used to control a robot with 2 motors (control speed and direction for each one).  All the plans and logic you need to build it is available on this web page, if you don't have the time, the mood or the tools to build it, you can post a comment and i'll build one for you on a very good price... 25$ let's say.

The construction pf the power module can be seen in detail on a diferent post. (i'm working on it right now)

Here is the components list for the ROAR HB power module :

• 1 * L298N (dual full h bridge)
• 6 * 1k resistor
• 12 * 1N5819 (fast diode, you can use any fast diode that can handle 30V/1A)
• 2 * red leds
• 4 * green leds
• 19 * pins
• 2 * jumpers

And finally here is the ROAR MPP brain module :

the driver ROAR MPP brain module

This module is also very usefull in lots of application because it's fully customizable, on this board is everything the pic needs to run, the pin B0 seted to be used as an interrupt... and a power led.

Related posts:

1. Stepper motor controller
2. Testing my stepper motor driver and software
3. My CNC machine, the beginnings, the X axis working

The frame of the machine is build from wood and use furniture rails as guides for the moving parts. The stepper motors are from old printers on floppy disk units and they are very different one from each other. The driver motor drivers are build by me from scratch using L298n (i'll ost about the driver later) and a pic micro controller to command the driver (i'll also post about that later).

I'll just post a video with the x axis working and detail each part in later posts.

Related posts:

1. Stepper motor inteligent driver and controller
2. Stepper motor controller

and here is a unipolar motor controlled by the driver.

Also in this second video i use different sources for powering the circuit board and the power source for the motor.

Related posts:

1. Stepper motor inteligent driver and controller
2. Stepper motor controller
3. My CNC machine, the beginnings, the X axis working